New Italian unicorn Exein rides the physical AI wave

Europe has a caller unicorn: Italian startup Exein has conscionable raised a $270 cardinal backing circular led by Headline astatine a $1.7 cardinal valuation connected the committedness of providing a cybersecurity furniture for carnal AI — an improvement of its archetypal absorption connected IoT.

“The conception of Exein is that each instrumentality should beryllium capable to support itself, careless if they are connected to a unafraid web oregon not,” CEO Gianni Cuozzo told TechCrunch. The Rome-based institution has been doubling down connected this approach; its latest product, Photon, is simply a runtime information solution to forestall attacks astatine the kernel level of a device.

This attack requires moving successful adjacent concern with manufacturers, and Exein says it has been doing truthful since its inception successful 2018. According to Cuozzo, the prime to enactment straight with OEMs and silicon vendors was driven by the condemnation that connected devices were connected the rise. 

This created important tailwinds for Exein, which claims to person secured much than 2 cardinal connected devices successful sectors wherever cyberattacks could beryllium paralyzing, including aerospace, concern automation, automotive manufacturing, energy, healthcare, and semiconductors.

The startup expects its maturation to beryllium sustained by the emergence of carnal AI, which uses the aforesaid proviso chain. Cuozzo noted that his merchandise tin screen AI-powered robots, drones, self-driving cars, sensors, astute appliances and different connected devices moving models connected the edge.

Investors look to agree: Exein says that its latest circular was importantly oversubscribed. Its valuation has accrued thirty-fold since its Series B immoderate 2 years ago, and much than doubled since it secured equity and debt successful December 2025 pursuing its Series C earlier past year.

Besides valuations, AI has besides boosted attackers’ capabilities. According to Cuozzo, this is being facilitated by open-source models that tin tally without guardrails, and marque it overmuch easier and cheaper to people carnal devices successful caller ways.

Exein has already seen an increase successful what Cuozzo calls “machine-speed attacks,” and intends to respond with a foundational exemplary for Physical AI security. The institution is presently grooming the exemplary connected instrumentality information and telemetrics, and plans to person it acceptable successful the archetypal 4th of 2027.

In the meantime, Exein intends to usage the caller backing for M&As to implicit its portfolio of products, and prosecute unit to accelerate its enlargement successful the U.S. and successful the Asia Pacific, which presently drives fractional of its revenue. 

Cuozzo said being dispersed crossed 3 continents has been Exein’s main situation truthful far. The breadth of its beingness took immoderate adjusting to, but it has borne fruit, helium said, noting that the institution is “growing 400% twelvemonth connected year.” 

While specified maturation numbers are often hard to maintain, Exein could get a manus from the European Union’s Cyber Resilience Act, whose reporting obligations kicked disconnected past week. The Act volition travel into afloat unit successful December 2027, and requires manufacturers to “make definite each integer products are harmless from cyber threats.”

Pictured from near to right: Gerardo Gagliardo, CFO & co-founder; Gianni Cuozzo, CEO & founder; Giovanni Alberto Falcione, CTO & co-founder.